SHARKSPAGEThe Bay Area and the internet's longest running hockey and local sports blog since 1998.2015-03-30T12:26:17Zhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?feed=atomWordPressDarryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=71292015-03-30T12:26:17Z2015-03-30T12:26:17ZThe Worcester Sharks went into Sunday afternoon’s contest at the DCU Center with the Springfield Falcons with a chance to provide a cushion between them and ninth place in the American Hockey League’s Eastern Conference playoff race, but after a solid opening period where they held a two goals lead the WorSharks suddenly turned into the Keystone Cops and couldn’t do anything right. Goaltender Aaron Dell was forced to make several great saves over the final 40 minutes, and when it was all said and done Worcester escaped with a 4-1 victory for their fifth straight win and a six point weekend.

Worcester Sharks forward Daniel Ciampini had a goal and an assist in Sunday's 4-1 win for
the WorSharks over the Springfield Falcons. The former Union College standout has five
points in six AHL games this season. Photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’ll once again point to the WorSharks YouTube channel

Scratches for Worcester were Konrad Abeltshauser, Jimmy Bonneau, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder/out for season), Jeremy Langlois (foot), Trevor Parkes (right leg), and Joakim Ryan. Troy Grosenick was the back-up goaltender. There were two transactions after Saturday night’s 3-2 OT win against St John’s, with defenseman Taylor Fedun being recalled to the San Jose Sharks and goaltender Joel Rumpel being released from his ATO. Rumple is going to head to the Allen Americans (ECHL) as they are in need of a goaltender after an injury to Riley Gill. There was some great news on the injury front broken this morning by Bill Ballou of the Worcester Telegram concerning Trevor Parkes. It seems the initial thoughts of a fractured right leg have proved to be incorrect. While that will obviously shorten Parkes’ recovery time there was no official word from the WorSharks about the situation at all.

The WorSharks now start on a “it was four but now is five” game road trip before returning to the DCU Center on April 11th. This week it’s Wednesday in Hershey and Friday at Wilkes-Barre before having Easter weekend off. Worcester then heads to Bridgeport on Monday, April 6 in a make-up game from December 21st when the Sound Tigers allegedly had bus troubles and couldn’t make it back home from Norfolk in time for their Sunday afternoon contest. The following day Worcester is in Portland to take on the Pirates. Then it’s the beginning of a home and home series with Providence starting in Rhode Island on the 10th.

Math not being this writer’s strong suit, it appears the WorSharks magic number for clinching an AHL Calder Cup playoff berth is 12. The maximum points the Albany Devils can reach is 91, and for Springfield it’s 90. With Worcester currently at 80, that makes the magic number is 12. Worcester has ten games remaining. Their 80 points on the season already surpasses their end of season totals from the last three campaigns. If Worcester plays just .500 hockey the rest of the way they’ll end up with their third best point total in franchise history. Their 93 points from 2006-07 is well within reach, but the franchise record of 104 is safe as the maximum Worcester can get with 10 wins is 100.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=71242015-03-29T12:26:35Z2015-03-29T12:13:19ZThe Worcester Sharks stumbled and bumbled their way through most of Saturday night’s game at the DCU Center against the St John’s IceCaps, including not getting a single shot on goal during a full two minute five on three skater advantage, and found themselves trailing in the third period when WorSharks all-time goal scoring leader John McCarthy connected for his 63rd franchise goal to help get Worcester into the extra stanza where defenseman Matt Taormina’s blast through traffic found the back of the net to give the WorSharks the 3-2 overtime win. Goaltender Troy Grosenick had 18 saves for his 19th win on the season.

Worcester Sharks defenseman Matt Taormina scored his second overtime goal of
the season to give the WorSharks a 3-2 victory over the St John's IceCaps.
The goal gives him nine on the season. Photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’ll once again use the Worcester Sharks YouTube channel.

Scratches for Worcester were Konrad Abeltshauser, Chris Crane, Dylan Demelo, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder/out for season), Jeremy Langlois (foot), Trevor Parkes (broken leg), Joel Rumpel, and Joakim Ryan. Aaron Dell was the back-up goaltender. There was no official word from the WorSharks on Parkes’ injury, and as the team is in “playoff mode” odds are there won’t be, but it’s pretty clear that Parkes season is over unless Worcester makes a deep playoff run. As of posting time there was no word of a WorSharks defensive recall to San Jose with Marc-Edouard Vlasic being injured and unavailable for Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh.

Many games have a point where you can go back and say that was the moment the game was won or lost. For Worcester and St John’s it appeared that moment was going to be in the second period when IceCaps winger Joel Armia was called for holding and then got an unsportsmanlike minor for disagreeing with referee Kendrick Nicholson–the writer disagreed with Nicholson too but went unpenalized–and before his first minor expired teammate Patrice Cormier was sent off for hooking in a play that probably saved a goal. Had Worcester scored in the first 16 seconds of that five on three the two man advantage would have continued as Armia’s first minor would have been the penalty to come off the clock, but not only did the WorSharks not score in those opening seconds they failed to get off a shot in the entire two minutes of two man advantage. With Taormina’s overtime goal what could have been an important moment in the game became nothing but a footnote.

Prior to the game the Worcester Sharks, along with a handful of former WorSharks and IceCats players, raised a banner with the names of every player to dress in a game for Worcester–up until the point the banner was made, of course–in the American Hockey League’s twenty year run in the city. In the ceremonial puck drop Worcester Sharks Booster Club President Rich Lundin dropped the puck between WorSharks all-time scorer McCarthy and Worcester all-time leader in almost everything Terry Virtue.

With the goal and an assist McCarthy moved into a fourth place tie with Jame Pollcok for all-time goals for Worcester with 63, and inched closer to fourth all-time in points as he’s now just five behind Eric Boguniecki’s 155. McCarthy is also five shy of Tom Cavanagh’s WorSharks franchise assist record. Presuming he stays healthy McCarthy will pass Nick Petrecki’s franchise record for games played on April 12th against Albany, and with ten regular season games remaining McCarthy needs three goals to catch Justin Papineau for third all-time.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=71192015-03-28T14:46:25Z2015-03-28T14:46:25ZThe Worcester Sharks found themselves in a situation they’ve faced far too often during this season Friday night at the MassMutual Center against the Springfield Falcons: trailing in the first period. But unlike previous weeks the WorSharks started firing on all cylinders while still in the opening stanza and managed to take the lead after twenty minutes and then never looked back in a 6-3 victory over the Falcons to jump back into 8th place in the American Hockey League’s Eastern Conference standings. Eriah Hayes had two goals for the WorSharks, with Evan Trupp, franchise goal scoring leader John McCarthy, Daniel Ciampini, and newcomer Matt Willows each adding a goal a piece.

Worcester Sharks forward Eriah Hayes had two goals in the WorSharks 6-3 victory
over the Falcons in Springfield on Friday night. The win drops Worcester's
AHL playoff clinching magic number to 18. Photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlight’s we’ll use the Springfield Falcons YouTube channel.

Scratches for Worcester were Konrad Abeltshauser, Jimmy Bonneau, Chris Crane, Dylan Demelo, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder/out for season), Jeremy Langlois (foot), Joel Rumpel, and Joakim Ryan. Troy Grosenick was the back-up goaltender. Over the last week the WorSharks have had a slew of transactions, with Vincent Arseneau being loaned to the Allen Americans (ECHL) and forward Matt Willows from the University of New Hampshire being signed to an amateur try-out. Both defenseman Joakim Ryan (San Jose 2012 draft pick 7/198) and goaltender Joel Rumpel (NCAA free agent from University of Wisconsin) were signed to entry level contracts by San Jose and were assigned to Worcester.

The injury list for the WorSharks is about to get a little longer as reports have Trevor Parkes breaking his lower right leg after a big open ice hit Friday night in Springfield. The check was totally clean, and Parkes’ injury took place as his legs to tangled up underneath him as he fell to the ice. Obviously no time table for his return, but assuming it’s his fibula best case scenario is in the neighborhood of six weeks. Willows took Parkes’ spot on the top line and didn’t look out of place at all.

For a game that was as important to both clubs as Friday’s was and as physical games generally are between the two teams the WorSharks and Falcons were called for just three minors combined as referee Kendrick Nicholson let the boys play. Both teams scored a power play goal, with the Falcons getting one on their only power play of the game in the third period and Trupp’s goal coming late in the second with the man advantage.

WorSharks goalie Aaron Dell and Springfield netminder Scott Monroe really put on a clinic during the contest, with each making acrobatic saves and both had to make saves without a stick at one point. Despite the nine total goals score if either had been off their game it could have looked like a basketball score.

Columbus Blue Jackets prospect Sonny Milano made his AHL debut last night for Springfield, and to say he’s fast is akin to saying water is wet. His first period assist on the Falcons first goal where he outskated WorSharks defenseman Matt Tennyson behind the Worcester goal line is no doubt the first of many points Milano will get in the pros in his career.

With his third period goal Willows adds himself to the short list of Worcester Sharks players who scored a goal in the debut with the team. Who is on that list, you ask? That’s a good question as I can’t find where it is at the moment. More on that tomorrow, I hope.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=71092015-03-22T13:47:32Z2015-03-22T13:47:32ZThe Worcester Sharks offense was firing on all cylinders Saturday night at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts against Lehigh Valley, with 13 of the 18 skaters registering points in the WorSharks 6-1 victory over the Phantoms. Former Union College standout Daniel Ciampini led the way notching his first two pro points with a goal and an assist, and John McCarthy’s late third period strike gave him 61 goals in his WorSharks career, moving him into first place by himself in career goals for the franchise. Enforcer and fan favorite Jimmy Bonneau had just his second multi-point night in a Worcester jersey with two assists, and goaltender Aaron Dell had 29 saves for his tenth win of the season.

Worcester Sharks forward Daniel Ciampini scored his first two career pro points
Saturday night in the WorSharks 6-1 win over Lehigh Valley. Ciampini's first
period goal gave Worcester a lead they would never relinquish and his second
period assist helped put the game away. Photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’ll once again use the Worcester Sharks YouTube channel:

Scratches for Worcester were Konrad Abeltshauser, Vincent Arseneau, Chris Crane, Dylan DeMelo (ankle), Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), and Jeremy Langlois (foot). Troy Grosenick was the back-up goaltender. During the game defenseman Gus Young suffered a groin injury, and word afterwards was while it wasn’t serious he might not be ready for next weekend’s slate of games. DeMelo is expected to be able to play by that point, and with the NCAA down their 16 team tourney field set there will be a influx of players on amateur try-out deals heading to Worcester, including San Jose Sharks draft pick Joakim Ryan (2012 7th/198), a defenseman from Cornell.

John McCarthy just keeps writing himself into the WorSharks and Worcester all-time record books, and his third period goal Saturday night broke his tie with Dan DaSilva for the franchise mark for career goals at 61. That places him tied in sixth place all-time for Worcester with Stephane Roy, with Jeff Panzer’s 62 and Jame Pollock’s 63 easily catchable with 13 regular season games remaining. McCarthy’s 147 points are fifth in Worcester’s all-time AHL history, but he’s going to have to do some work to catch Eric Boguniecki’s 155 points for fourth. The only WorSharks record McCarthy doesn’t hold is career assists, where his 86 is six behind the late Tom Cavanagh.

If Micheal Haley finishes the season with 19 goals he can blame the AHL’s incredibly poor replay system for not getting to twenty as Haley had a goal stolen from him last night when the replay system at the DCU Center–the one that’s mandated by the American Hockey League–failed to work. It is an outright shame that the AHL demands its teams use an antiquated system that isn’t set up to handle some of the peculiarities of their buildings. Plus when the home video security system I use at my house is a better quality than a video goal system a professional league uses it shows an incredible lack of judgment by the league.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=71032015-03-21T12:27:22Z2015-03-21T12:27:22ZThe Worcester Sharks know all it will take for them to get into the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup playoffs is to just win games as they still control their own fate, and Friday night at the DCU Center the WorSharks got off to a quick start with two first period goals by captain Bryan Lerg and goaltender Aaron Dell made them stand up in Worcester’s 3-1 win over the St John’s IceCaps in front of a boisterous crowd of 5,291 to get back into the AHL’s playoff race.

Worcester Sharks captain Bryan Lerg scored two first period goals to lead the WorSharks
to a 3-1 victory over the St John's IceCaps. The two strikes by Lerg gave him 37 points
on the season, which puts him in the team lead. Photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’ll use the WorSharks YouTube channel

Scratches for Worcester were Konrad Abeltshauser, Vincent Arseneau, Jimmy Bonneau, Dylan DeMelo (unknown injury), Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), and Jeremy Langlois (foot). Troy Grosenick was the back-up goaltender. For those that missed my twitter update after Wednesday’s loss to Hershey Emanuelsson will be out for the remainder of the season after having surgery on his opposite shoulder that had been previously injured. Prior to Friday night’s game WorSharks beat reporter Bill Ballou of the Telegram & Gazette tweeted that former Union forward Daniel Ciampini has been released from his ATO and signed to an AHL contract for the remainder of the season. There was no official word from the WorSharks on that, but Ballou bats 1.000 on those kind of things so it’s obviously true.

Speaking of twitter, after Lerg’s second goal and fourth in a row for the WorSharks I tweeted I was fairly certain the four goals in a row was a franchise record. Yeah, not so much. After a review last night over some Chinese food it turns out the record is five by Daniil Tarasov, running from October 20th to the 26th in 2013 when Tarasov had single goal games against Portland and Manchester before a hat trick against Springfield.

Lerg’s first goal was reviewed after the IceCaps complained he kicked it into the net. Referees Michael Mullen and David Banfield talked about it, and then looked at the video replay before confirming the goal. Originally it looked like Worcester caught a break as Lerg’s kick was beyond the view of the goal line camera, but during a post game jersey auction Lerg told several people he did get his stick on it after he kicked it. Low and behold, watching the highlight video you can see Lerg just get his stick on the puck as it bounds away from him.

Looking at the box score you’d think John McCarthy didn’t have a great game with no points and being a minus-one for the night, but his play during one shift on the penalty kill shows why he was a great additions to the team. With the WorSharks down two skaters in the span of 40 seconds or so McCarthy blocked two shots, deflected a pass, and then blocked a third shot and was able to clear the puck. No box score categories in the AHL for those things, but they were just as big as any goal he’s scored this season.

During the 2010-2011 season while the injury bug was hitting pretty much every goaltender in the San Jose organization Worcester signed goalie Jeff Jakaitis to a PTO. He played in three games for Worcester, going 1-2-0, and while he wasn’t terrible he certainly didn’t write his name into any record books while he was here. That is certainly not the case in the ECHL as Jakaitis just recently broke the league’s shutout streak record. His streak currently is 319:32, less than period behind the all-time North American professional record of 332:01 set by Brian Boucher in 2003-04 with the Phoenix Coyotes.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70992015-03-14T16:22:07Z2015-03-14T16:22:07ZThe Worcester Sharks continued their first period woes by not scoring in the opening stanza in their seventh consecutive game, and despite coming back from a two goal deficit in the middle period the WorSharks didn’t have enough to get fully over the hump and dropped a 3-2 contest to the Albany Devils at the Times Union Center on Friday night. Defensemen Taylor Fedun and Karl Stollery had the goals for Worcester, while Troy Grosenick was the hard-luck loser despite making 31 saves, many of the spectacular variety.

Worcester Sharks defenseman Karl Stollery scored his first goal for the WorSharks
since being traded for Freddie Hamilton at the NHL trade deadline. Stollery has
three points in five games for Worcester. File photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we get to use the Albany Devil’s YouTube channel.

Scratches for the WorSharks were Konrad Abeltshauser, Jimmy Bonneau, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Jeremy Langlois (foot), Daniil Tarasov (potential recall), Matt Tennyson (lower body), and Evan Trupp (undisclosed injury). Aaron Dell was the back-up goaltender. The word that Tarasov might be recalled to San Jose reached Worcester Sharks head coach Roy Sommer about a half-hour before the team bus departed to Albany, so as is usually the case Tarasov was left behind in Worcester. As of posting time his recall was not official.

Season after season the schedule released for the WorSharks by the AHL has had a few head-scratching entries, usually consisting of long bus trips between locations that had the games been in reverse order would have made for much easier trips. This season Worcester only had one mad dash, a home to Syracuse overnight trip that was made easier by an early start the previous day. This season it’s having basically an entire weekend off as the playoff rush begins. The WorSharks don’t take to the ice again until next Wednesday against Hershey while nearly everyone else in the AHL plays a three-in-three. The rest does come at a good time as the injury bug is starting to bite Worcester, and the extra couple days off will likely do wonders for the club.

Milestone alerts: John McCarthy is one goal short of the WorSharks franchise lead; Travis Oleksuk needs one point for 75 in his Worcester career, Matt Tennyson needs two for 60 and Dylan DeMelo two for 50.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70942015-03-13T14:30:45Z2015-03-13T14:30:45ZThe Worcester Sharks went down to the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut on Wednesday night with a little revenge in mind after losing to the Sound Tigers at the DCU Center on Saturday, and behind a record setting night by John McCarthy and a near flawless game by goaltender Troy Grosenick the WorSharks defeated Bridgeport 5-1 to jump into sixth place in the American Hockey League’s Eastern Conference standings. Dylan DeMelo, Daniil Tarasov, and Eriah Hayes were the other goal scorers for Worcester, while Willie Coetzee extended his point streaks to four games with an assist.

Worcester Sharks forward John McCarthy had two goals an and assist Wednesday night in
Bridgeport to become the WorSharks all-time points leader with 145 points. McCarthy is
also tied with Dan DaSilva for the Worcester Sharks all-time goal lead at 60.
File photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’re going to point at AHLlive.com. Usually the Sound Tigers put together a great video package on their website, but for Wednesday’s game there was an obvious issue with the upload.

Scratches for the WorSharks were Konrad Abeltshauser, Jimmy Bonneau, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Jeremy Langlois (foot), Bryan Lerg (knee), Matt Tennyson (lower body), and Evan Trupp (undisclosed injury). Aaron Dell was the back-up netminder. None of the recent injuries are thought to be serious, but it did make for an interesting stat for the game: half of Worcester’s top ten scorers out of the line-up with Trupp, Lerg, and Langlois injured, Chris Tierney still on recall to San Jose, and Freddie Hamilton traded to Colorado. Earlier in the week Worcester GM Joe Will made a trade with the Manchester Monarchs, getting forward Vincent Arseneau in exchange for future considerations. Arseneau made his WorSharks debut Wednesday wearing #16.

As noted above, John McCarthy continues to write his name in the WorSharks record books. Now possessing the Worcester Sharks all-time points record he needs just one goal to take over that category from Dan DaSilva, and seven more assists to catch Tom Cavanagh’s 92 for that record. McCarthy’s 85 is actually third on the WorSharks career assist list, with Steven Zalewski’s 87 next up. McCarthy also needs 13 games to catch Nick Petrecki at 277 for most games played for the Worcester Sharks. On the Worcester all-time list McCarthy is tied for 7th (with DaSilva) in goals but likely will not catch Marc Brown’s 79 for the IceCats. In assists McCarthy is tied with Daniel Cosro for sixth all-time, in career points he is sixth by himself, and games played he’s in fifth place. In those categories McCarthy has no chance of catching “Mr IceCats” Terry Virtue.

In Saturday’s game between the two clubs Colton Gillies was given a major and ejected for his hit on WorSharks captain Bryan Lerg, and even though Lerg came back to finish that game he’s been an injury scratch since. The AHL decided the hit wasn’t worthy of a suspension despite it being much more serious that the hit they suspended Jimmy Bonneau for last week. It was presumed that with Bonneau available to play Wednesday Worcester head coach Roy Sommer would send his tough guy out to extract some frontier justice, but Sommer scratched Bonneau. Worcester plays in Bridgeport one more time this season–the game rescheduled because the Sound Tigers allegedly had travel troubles in January–so we may still see Bonneau introducing himself to Gillies.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70882015-03-08T15:22:42Z2015-03-08T14:35:57ZThe Worcester Sharks spotted the Bridgeport Sound Tigers a two goal first period lead and through uninspired play saw the deficit climb to three goals, but two late power play strikes from Chris Crane and Willie Coetzee got the WorSharks all the way to nearly even before time ran out on their comeback as Worcester dropped a 4-3 contest to the Sound Tigers at the DCU Center on “Troy Grosenick Bobblehead Night”. Micheal Haley had the other tally for the WorSharks while Travis Oleksuk contributed two assists.

Worcester Sharks forward Micheal Haley continued his assault on the 20 goal
plateau with a second period power play tally during the WorSharks 4-3 loss
to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers Saturday night at the DCU Center.
File photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we again get to use the WorSharks YouTube channel

Scratches for Worcester were Jimmy Bonneau (suspended, game two of three), Derek DeBlois, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Jeremy Langlois (foot), and Rylan Schwartz. Aaron Dell was the back-up goaltender, and he’s scheduled to start Sunday in Providence. Just after Friday night’s win over Hartford Taylor Fedun was recalled to San Jose, and just after the Sharks game ended according to the AHL transactions Fedun was returned to the WorSharks. Saturday Worcester went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen, something WorSharks head coach Roy Sommer has done on more than a few occasions this season.

There are significant rumors saying the WorSharks are looking to make some additions to their line-up prior to the AHL trade deadline on Monday. Sources say the team is focused on some of the AHL teams unlikely to make the Calder Cup playoffs looking for a goal scorer whose NHL rights holder might want to see get some playoff time. WorSharks GM Joe Will was understandably quiet on the issue, only talking in general terms that adding players for a playoff run is something that obviously would be looked at if the opportunity arose. Based on the rumors, that opportunity is knocking on Will’s door.

Looking at the highlight video it’s clear to see Worcester escaped what might have been a killing blow to their playoff chances when WorSharks captain Bryan Lerg turned out to not be hurt by the elbow thrown by Sound Tigers forward Colton Gillies. While referee Evgeny Romasko ejected Gillies for kneeing the video clearly shows the knee to knee contact was incidental, and that the real hit was a shoulder that impacted Lerg’s head. After needing help to get off the ice and down to the dressing room it was only a few minutes before Lerg returned to the bench and continued playing looking no worse for wear. With Taylor Doherty getting an instigator minor for jumping Gillies Worcester ended up with a three minute major power play out of the deal, but could not capitalize.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70792015-03-07T15:23:05Z2015-03-07T13:33:26ZThe Worcester Sharks started off Friday night’s game against the Hartford Wolf Pack at the DCU Center looking unfocused and uninterested, and as a result found themselves down 2-0 after twenty minutes of play. Whatever the WorSharks did in the first intermission they may wish to do every night as Worcester came storming out of the gate in the second period and scored five unanswered goals, with the last two coming a franchise record six seconds apart, to defeat Hartford 5-2. Micheal Haley had two goals, while Willie Coetzee and Bryan Lerg each added two assists on the night. Troy Grosenick picked up the win in a 33 save performance.

Worcester Sharks forwards Daniil Tarasov (left) and Micheal Haley scored goals
just six seconds apart in the second period, a franchise record for the two
quickest goals, to help led the WorSharks to a 5-2 victory over Hartford.
SHARKSPAGE graphic from file photos courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we once again get to use the WorSharks YouTube channel. Missing from the video is Worcester’s second goal, and absolute laser by Taylor Fedun from the blue line on the power play a minute or so after Haley’s first goal.

Scratches for the WorSharks were Konrad Abeltshauser, Jimmy Bonneau (suspended, game one of three), Taylor Doherty, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Jeremy Langlois (foot), and Rylan Schwartz. Aaron Dell was the back-up goaltender. The NHL trade deadline had an impact on Worcester’s roster as San Jose sent Freddie Hamilton to the Colorado Avalanche for defenseman Karl Stollery, who was immediately assigned to the WorSharks. San Jose also assigned and recalled Chris Tierney and Barclay Goodrow to make them both eligible for the AHL playoffs. With Bonneau being suspended the WorSharks dipped into the ECHL and signed forward Derek DeBlois to a PTO. DeBlois started the season with Worcester but because of a glut of forwards was released without playing a game. He went on to the South Carolina Stingrays (ECHL), where he won the ECHL’s rookie of the month for February.

This is the time of the year when teams get a little more closed mouth about injuries, and being in the playoff hunt Worcester is joining the ranks of teams saying little about potential injures. That being the case, there hasn’t been a significant update on the conditions of Emanuelsson and/or Langlois. This writer hasn’t seen either of them in the building lately so guessing what’s going on is impossible. It should be noted that not seeing injured players prior/during games isn’t all that uncommon, so nothing should be read into the fact they aren’t around. One player that has been a scratch for many recent game and the WorSharks are adamant about not being inured is defenseman Konrad Abeltshauser. No matter how I worded the question to WorSharks Public Relations Director Eric Lindquist the answer was the same: he’s a healthy scratch.

The second period goals by Tarasov (16:47) and Haley (16:53) have been announced as the quickest two goals in franchise history. It breaks a record of 12 seconds set way back in the inaugural season on February 2, 2007 when Garrett Stafford and Tomas Plihal scored 12 seconds apart against Bridgeport at the DCU Center. Those goals were just like the Tarasov/Haley goals, with a quick even strength strike following a power play tally.

Friday night’s game saw another oddity on Gus Young’s goal as it was the first time in franchise history three defenseman got points on the same goal. After Matt Tennyson left the penalty box after serving a tripping minor he joined an odd man rush up ice, and his pass to Dylan DeMelo was the secondary assist on Young’s deflection of DeMelo’s blast. It is, as near as I can tell, just the third time in franchise history the WorSharks have scored a goal with three defensemen on the ice. The second time may not even count as Brad Staubitz was listed as a defenseman but was likely playing forward that game.

The WorSharks five goal second period outburst was the first time since April 7, 2010 that Worcester had as many goals in a single period. Ironically, that night was a 9-2 win at Hartford.

Every WorSharks skater had a shot on goal except for Travis Oleksuk, and even without a shot Oleksuk had a pretty decent game. After the lackluster opening period most of Worcester’s lines looked real good in the final 40 minutes.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70752015-02-28T13:24:16Z2015-02-28T13:24:16ZThe Worcester Sharks, fresh off a sweep of last weekend’s three-in-three with a pair of victories over the Norfolk Admirals and a Sunday win in Manchester, went into Friday night’s game against the St John’s IceCaps with a little revenge in mind after being banged around a bit on The Rock two weeks ago and eventually blowing a four goal lead. Worcester got some payback both on the ice and on the scoreboard with a mammoth tone-setting fight from Jimmy Bonneau at the opening puck drop and a timely offensive outburst to defeat the IceCaps 6-3 at the DCU Center. Evan Trupp led the WorSharks with his first professional hat trick and an assist, while Trevor Parkes had his first three assist game as pro. Aaron Dell had 29 saves in the victory. The two teams play again Saturday at 7pm.

For video highlights we’ll point to the Worcester Sharks YouTube channel, where 2008–09 James H. Ellery Memorial Award winner Kevin Shea joined WorSharks play by play man Eric Lindquist with the call.

Scratches for Worcester were Konrad Abeltshauser, Chris Crane, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Jeremy Langlois (Foot), and Daniil Tarasov. Troy Grosenick was the back-up goaltender. With this writer being off for nearly two weeks we’re a little behind in the transactions. Since our last update Dylan DeMelo, Matt Tennyson, and Tarasov have all been assigned to Worcester by San Jose, while the WorSharks have sent three down to the ECHL in J.P. Anderson (Allen Americans), Kyle Bigos (Ontario Reign), and Nick Jones (Indy Fuel).

With his hat trick Trupp became the second WorSharks player to score a hat trick and assist on all three goals of another player’s hat trick in the same season. Trupp assisted on all three of Langlois’ goals on January 21st in Portland. Mathieu Darche was the first to do it, scoring the franchise’s first hat trick on December 22, 2006 against Manchester and then assisting on all of Mike Iggulden’s goals on March 31, 2007 in Houston. Tarasov has also accomplished the feat, although it took two season for him to do it, scoring his hat trick October 26, 2013 at Springfield and then exactly one year later assisting on all three of Freddie Hamilton’s goals against Portland.

The Worcester Sharks booster Club announced their player of the month awards for the first portion of the season in a pregame ceremony, with Micheal Haley winning for October, Matt Taormina for November, and captain Bryan Lerg for December. After the ceremony the WorSharks surprised longtime season ticket holder Chris O’Shea by having her take part in the ceremonial puck drop.

To call Friday night’s contest one of the poorest officiated games in recent memory would be a massive understatement. Referee Garrett Rank, working alone for the game, apparently panicked after the opening faceoff battle between Jimmy Bonneau and Blair Riley and ejected both players for “continuing altercation”, a rule that exists solely for the purpose of referees ejecting players. Rank then seemed to forget he was officiating a hockey game and let everything go until late in the second period when Taylor Doherty had enough and absolutely went bonkers on IceCaps forward JC Lipon, literally picking Lipon up and driving him into the boards. In the third period Rank called Eriah Hayes for high sticking even after watching Hayes get slashed multiple times beforehand. Somehow the least penalized team in the AHL was the only team killing penalties in the game. Seems a tad odd to this writer.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70672015-02-15T15:00:45Z2015-02-15T12:46:30ZThe Worcester Sharks overcame canceled flights, aborted landings, and missing equipment during their trip north to St John’s, Newfoundland, and when if finally came time to just go out and play some hockey Saturday night that’s what the WorSharks did as Gus Young, Bryan Lerg, and newcomer Trevor Parkes all scored for Worcester while goaltender Aaron Dell was solid in net again during Worcester’s 3-1 win over the IceCaps on Valentine’s Day night at the Mile One Centre.

Worcester Sharks defenseman Gus Young (white, #3) defends against St John's forward
Eric O'Dell while WorSharks goaltender Aaron Dell takes a peek around the players
looking for the puck. Young scored Worcester's first goal while Dell had 24 saves.
Photo courtesy of ST. JOHN'S ICECAPS

For video highlights we’ll use the IceCaps YouTube channel, and we get to hear the voice of Brian Rogers, who is one of the best in the business.

Scratches for the WorSharks were Kyle Bigos, Jimmy Bonneau, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Troy Grosenick, and Jeremy Langlois (broken foot). J.P. Anderson was the back-up goaltender. The good news is Grosenick is no longer an injury/illness scratch and is working his way back into game shape. He is with the team on the trip. One person not listed who didn’t make the trek to Newfoundland is head coach Roy Sommer, who stayed behind in Worcester after suffering a “minor medical issue” that required a brief hospitalization. Word from the team is Roy will be OK, and will rejoin the team when they arrive back home early next week.

In Roy’s absence assistant coach Ryan Mougenel took over the reins while developmental coach Bryan Marchment worked as his assistant. It’s the second time in his AHL assistant coaching career that Mougenel has taken the helm for an ill head coach, the first time was January 26, 2014 when Mougenel took over for Hershey Bears head coach Mike Haviland when he took ill before a game against Wilkes-Barre. The Bears won that game 2-0. There’s another Worcester connection to that story as Patrick Wellar, a scratched Bears defenseman and former IceCats player, worked as Mougenel’s assistant behind the bench in that game. Ironically, referee Tim Mayer has worked both games Mougenel was acting head coach. Mayer will make it three for three Sunday afternoon when the two teams meet up again.

Like baseball, hockey is a game of inches where just a small amount space makes a play onside or offside, or turns a booming body check into a glancing blow, or turns a goal into a harmlessly bouncing away puck. That last example is often the most heartbreaking for one team while extremely relieving for the other. It was the WorSharks that were on the happier end of that scale as the IceCaps found the iron behind goaltender Dell four times in the contest. An inch here and an inch there and we’d have had a whole different game going on.

With Saturday’s game John McCarthy moves into second place in WorSharks team history, and 5th in Worcester pro hockey all-time, for games played at 254. Next up on the all-time lest is Jame Pollock’s 270. Nick Petrecki has the Worcester Sharks team record at 277 games, and is third all-time in Worcester hockey history. McCarthy also is 4 goals, 10 assists, and 6 points short of WorSharks franchise records in those categories. He’s also 461 penalty minutes shy of the team record but it’s probably unlikely he makes that ground up.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Grosenick is healthy enough to play. Dell, who started the season with the Allen Americans of the ECHL as third on the WorSharks goaltender depth chart, has outplayed both Grosenick and Anderson by a significant margin. Due to the way NHL contracts work there’s virtually no way he replaces Grosenick, but Anderson still being on his entry level deal can be assigned to the ECHL. Don’t be shocked when the smoke clears if it’s Dell staying and Anderson leaving. Then the real controversy begins on who gets the most starts, Grosenick or the AHL-contracted Dell.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70602015-02-08T12:49:46Z2015-02-08T12:49:46ZThe Worcester Sharks embarked on a five game road trip earlier this week, and after a 4-3 win over the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in Allentown, Pennsylvania Wednesday night the WorSharks headed to Norfolk, Virginia for a pair against the Admirals. On Friday night Worcester was blanked by Norfolk as Admirals goaltender John Gibson had 36 saves in a 3-0 win over the WorSharks, but on Saturday Aaron Dell returned the favor with a 38 save performance of his own as Worcester defeated Norfolk 4-0 to split the two game set.

Worcester Sharks forward Micheal Haley scored his 13th goal of the season Saturday
night by deflecting Evan Trupp's high pass out of the air and past Norfolk Admirals
goaltender Jason LaBarbera on the power play during the WorSharks 4-0 victory.
Photo courtesy of JOHN WRIGHT/norfolkadmirals.com

For video highlights we were going to use the Norfolk Admirals YouTube channel, but there seems to be an issue with the uploaded highlights so we’ll just point to SendToNews.com

Scratches for the WorSharks were J.P. Anderson (illness), Kyle Bigos, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Troy Grosenick (illness), and Jeremy Langlois (foot). With Anderson falling ill Saturday Worcester had to scramble for a back-up goaltender, and not wanting to use Jimmy Bonneau again someone in the organization dug deep into their phone books to call 23 year old Jackson Winkler to be the emergency backup goaltender. Winkler is currently serving in the US Coast Guard and stationed in Yorktown. He wore #30, and got to keep his jersey for his night of sitting on the bench.

There were a few milestones reached Saturday night, with John McCarthy playing in his 253rd game for the Worcester Sharks tying him with Mike Moore for second all-time in franchise history behind Nick Petrecki’s 277. The 253 games for Worcester ties McCarthy and Moore with the IceCats Blake Evans for fifth all-time in Worcester’s AHL history. It will be a while before McCarthy gets to number four on that list as Jame Pollock is next at 270. McCarthy’s goal tied him with Tom Cavanagh for second in franchise history for points at 138. McCarthy is just six behind Dan DaSilva’s franchise mark of 144. Saturday was also Taylor Doherty’s 208th game for the WorSharks, tying him with Riley Armstrong for 11th in franchise history.

McCarthy’s goal at 3:40 of the first period broke Worcester’s scoreless treat at The Scope of 162:17. That stretched over three games, but somehow they managed a shootout win and an overtime loss for three out of a possible six points during the streak.

In one of those head scratching stats on Friday Admirals goaltender Gibson had a shutout and was called for a minor penalty, and on Saturday Dell did the same thing in being called for a penalty while shutting out Norfolk. It’s the third time a WorSharks goaltender has had a shutout and penalty in the same game, with Alex Stalock and Harri Sateri doing in over the past couple of seasons. Dell’s minor is the first WorSharks goaltender penalty since Sateri had one on March 16, 2014 vs Manchester.

Long time WorSharks fans will remember the name of Norfolk’s goaltender Jason LaBarbera as he was a pain in Worcester’s side during the 2006-07 season while he played for the Manchester Monarchs. It’s been a long while since he faced Worcester in a game, the last time being the WorSharks heartbreaking double OT loss in game six of the 2007 Calder Cup playoffs.

There was one fight in the contest with Bonneau taking on Norfolk’s Andrew O’Brien. Bonneau had initially gone after Admirals defenseman Mark Fistric in the third period in retaliation for Fistric’s check from behind to Konrad Abeltshauser in the second period. O’Brien showed some heart taking on Bonneau, and got pounded for his troubles. To add insult to potential injury O’Brien was called for an instigator minor after the battle, as if Bonneau’s attempt to fight Fistric never happened. This writer doesn’t mind the instigator rule when it’s called correctly. That time, like unfortunately most of the time it’s called, it was incorrectly applied. With nine minutes in penalties Bonneau passed the 400 mark in his WorSharks career (403).

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70542015-02-01T12:59:50Z2015-02-01T12:59:50ZThe Worcester Sharks got career high three point nights from both Eriah Hayes and Ryan Carpenter and a solid 26 save performance from goaltender Aaron Dell Saturday night at the DCU Center to defeat the Providence Bruins 3-2 during “Pink in the Rink” night in front of 7,760 fans. The win made the WorSharks 10-3-1 in the month if January for 21 points out of a possible 28 for the month.

Worcester Sharks forward Eriah Hayes (hands raised) begins to celebrate his first
period goal Saturday night as the Providence Bruins take exception to his play
in front of their net. The WorSharks would go on to win 3-2.
Photo courtesy CHRISTINE HOCHKEPPEL/T&G Staff

For video highlights we’ll use the Worcester Sharks YouTube channel.

Scratches for the WorSharks were Jimmy Bonneau, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), and Troy Grosenick (ill). J.P. Anderson was the backup goaltender. Worcester may unfortunately have another player hitting the injury list as rookie forward Jeremy Langlois did not play in the third period after crashing hard into the boards to the left of Providence goaltender Niklas Svedberg in the second period.

Worcester’s goaltending depth chart is pretty much set in stone with Grosenick being the clear number one and Anderson being his back-up, but every time Dell gets recalled from the Allen Americans (ECHL) he’s shown he’s a solid goaltender that should get a shot full time in the AHL, be it with in the San Jose organization or not, next season. Dell’s goals against average is nearly a full goal better than both the regular goalies and his save percentage is noticeably better too. Granted the sample size isn’t that large, but Dell’s numbers with Abbotsford last season were equally as good as this season.

We can put the bed the record for the latest overtime goal in the AHL using the new seven minute format as Lake Erie Monsters center Ben Street scored a penalty shot goal after the final horn sounded to defeat the Oklahoma City Barons 2-1. Officially listed as “7:00″ of OT it’s a record that cannot be broken in the current format, and considering how rare the circumstances of his goal are it’s unlikely it will ever be tied either.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70482015-01-31T12:54:55Z2015-01-31T12:54:55ZThe Worcester Sharks came out of the AHL’s All-Star break exactly how a team would want to, with a goal on their first shot. Unfortunately for the WorSharks it was downhill for much of the rest of the game and a late two goal spurt at the end of the third period wasn’t enough as Worcester dropped a 5-4 contest to the Providence Bruins Friday night at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island. Jeremy Langlois had two goals in the losing effort with Taylor Fedun assisting on both goals.

Worcester Sharks rookie Jeremy Langlois notched his team leading 15th and 16th goals
Friday night against Providence in a 5-4 loss to the Bruins. Langlois also leads the
WorSharks in points with 26. File photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’ll point to AHLlive.com. Video packages like this, when compared to those of other AHL teams, show what a little effort can do. The PBruins should be embarrassed about this.

Scratches for the WorSharks were Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Troy Grosenick (ill), and the recently recalled defenseman from Ontario (ECHL) Kyle Bigos. Daniil Tarasov was recalled to San Jose earlier in the week so Worcester doesn’t have any healthy scratched forwards. Word from Worcester Telegram reporter Bill Ballou of Grosenick’s illness doesn’t seen good as apparently doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong with the second year goaltender.

The WorSharks have historically had issues coming out of the all-star break, but with the team having good luck so far against Providence this season it appeared that Worcester might have a chance to get out of the gate a little quicker than past seasons. That was until the Boston Bruins decided to send Niklas Svedberg to the AHL for a brief conditioning stint. Entering the game Svedberg’s AHL record was a very impressive 62-23-6, and with the win he’s now 30 games over .500 in his minor league career. No word as of post time if Svedberg plays tonight when the teams meet again at the DCU Center.

The was one fight in the game, and with Jimmy Bonneau in the lineup for the first time in over a week one would think it wouldn’t take too long for the fan favorite to jump back into action. You’d have thought wrong as it was Travis Oleksuk dropping the gloves for the first time in his 170 game pro career when he took on PBruins defenseman Ben Youds after Youds had taken down Micheal Haley. It was more than a hugfest than anything else, but the boxscore says “fighting” so Oleksuk can now add that check mark to his pro résumé.

While this writer has decided to not cover the now official move of the Worcester Sharks to California on this blog and instead keeping the focus on just the hockey portion of the story, over on 210Sports I’ve written a couple stories that look more at the fan’s side of things as opposed to the straight news facts of the WorSharks leaving. For those interested you can check out Sportsmanship wins every time and AHL’s western move bad news for some, worse news for others.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70412015-01-25T14:31:46Z2015-01-25T13:19:20ZThe Worcester Sharks iced their best team in a long time Friday night at the DCU Center against the Albany Devils but a slow start eventually put them down three goals, a deficit that proved too much to overcome as the WorSharks lost 3-2 to end their franchise record eight game winning streak. On Saturday afternoon the two squads again faced each other again, this time at the Times Union Center in Albany, and it was Worcester that had the last laugh as Dylan DeMelo connected at 4:04 of overtime for a 2-1 WorSharks victory.

Worcester Sharks forward Chris Tierney continued his hot streak for the
WorSharks with assists in both games over the weekend. Tierney now has
seven goals and sixteen assists in 24 games with Worcester.
Photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’ll use both team’s YouTube channels.

Worcester Sharks head coach Roy Sommer went with the same lineup both nights as Konrad Abeltshauser, Jimmy Bonneau, Ryan Carpenter, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Troy Grosenick (flu), and Eriah Hayes were all scratches. Aaron Dell was the back-up both nights.

Saturday’s overtime saw a couple of “firsts” as goaltender J.P Anderson took over sole possession of the WorSharks and city pro record for wins by a right catching goaltender with six and Dylan DeMelo became the first player since Ryan Vesce in 2008-2009 to have multiple overtime goals in the same season. DeMelo is only half way to Vesce’s franchise record of four in the regular season. Vesce also had one in the playoffs that season. In one of those head scratching stats, the only two players to record overtime goal for the Worcester Sharks in multiple season are John McCarthy and Nick Petrecki. Yes, that Nick Petrecki, who only had eight goals in 277 games and managed to grab two of them in overtime.

In the first period of Friday’s game WorSharks captain Bryan Lerg was hit with an intentional elbow by a Devils player that went unpenalized. The incident went unnoticed by most, but not by the video, which has been sent to the AHL for review. In warm-ups Saturday Worcester enforcer Jimmy Bonneau voiced his displeasure as all 40 players got together with some pushing and shoving, but eventually calmer heads prevailed. Bonneau had a loud comment to WorSharks assistant coach Ryan Mougenel on the incident, but this being a family blog we won’t post what he said. It was classic Bonneau, however, and drew some laughs from the fans watching warm-ups along the glass.

The automatic delay of game minor is one of this writer’s pet peeves, it being one of the least needed rules of the game. The only thing worse is when it’s called incorrectly, and that happened two times on Saturday and both against Albany. In the first period Devils defenseman Mike Keenan was sent off for flipping the puck out of playing area in his defensive end, only it was clear that it hit the top of the glass and toppled over. In the third Albany defenseman Seth Helgeson winged one out of play by a good five feet, but the linesman said it was deflected, which is clearly was not.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70342015-01-23T13:37:58Z2015-01-23T13:37:58ZOn Wednesday the Worcester Sharks found themselves in a familiar position after two periods in Portland: outshooting the Pirates but behind on the scoreboard. It seemed like the WorSharks were destined for another heartbreaking loss at the recently renamed Cross Insurance Arena when rookie forward Jeremy Langlois pulled off the rare natural hat trick to give Worcester a shocking 3-2 win over the Pirates and extend the WorSharks winning streak to a franchise record eight games. Evan Trupp assisted on all three goals while goaltender J.P. Anderson has 16 saves in the winning effort.

Due to a sudden illness to Worcester Sharks scheduled starter Troy Grosenick rookie J.P. Anderson
got the call for Wednesday's game in Portland, and with no other back-up goaltender available
WorSharks tough-guy and fan favorite Jimmy Bonneau served as the emergency goaltender.
Photo courtesy of THE AMERICAN HOCKEY LEAGUE

Scratches for Worcester were Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Troy Grosenick (ill), and Nick Jones. With Grosenick taking ill while the team was in Portland and rookie J.P. Anderson the only other goaltender on the roster WorSharks tough-guy and fan favorite Jimmy Bonneau served as the emergency goaltender. Bonneau wore Grosenick’s gear and was wearing the #1 jersey. There are several pictures of him on twitter and he has an ear to ear grin in all of them.

Since Sunday there has been a bucket load of transactions for Worcester. On Tuesday PTO forward Greger Hanson was released and returned to the Allen Americans (ECHL) while defenseman Mirco Mueller was assigned to the WorSharks on a conditioning loan. Mueller played in the game Wednesday. Dylan DeMelo also received his first NHL recall and was a healthy scratch for San Jose’s 4-2 win over the LA Kings Wednesday night. On Thursday Worcester PR man Eric Lindquist got quite the workout with all the comings and goings as DeMelo was assigned back to the WorSharks, along with Tomas Hertl and Barclay Goodrow, for the NHL’s All Star break. With the extra defensemen around Worcester reassigned Jones to the Indy Fuel (ECHL), although it’s a safe bet he’ll be back at some point next week. The WorSharks also recalled goaltender Aaron Dell from Allen, likely looking to give Grosenick a few days to recover from his illness.

With all the reports coming out on the WorSharks likely move to the west coast this writer will once again point out that we’re going to stick with just the hockey side of things here and let the chips fall where they may in other areas. No matter what happens it will be business as usual here on Sharkspage.

With the win Anderson ties Nolan Schaefer for the WorSharks and all-time Worcester pro hockey record for wins by a right-catching goalie with five. In case you were wondering, number three on that list is the IceCats Alex Westlund with, well, none. Presuming Anderson gets one more win the next record for him will be Schaefer’s minutes plated by a right-catching goaltender at 921:28. Anderson is over three full games behind that right now. Once again Westlund is third on that list with 7:35 during a relief appearance of Brent Johnson.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70272015-01-19T14:04:25Z2015-01-19T14:04:17ZThe Worcester Sharks got two goals from Chris Tierney and single strikes from Matt Taormina and Taylor Doherty, and along with 29 saves from goaltender J.P. Anderson defeated the Manchester Monarchs 4-3 Sunday afternoon at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester New Hampshire for their third win in six days over the AHL’s Atlantic Division leaders. The win makes seven in a row and points in the last eight for the WorSharks, both tying franchise records.

Worcester Sharks forward Chris Tierney with the first of his two goals in
Sunday afternoon's contest as his backhander beats Manchester Monarchs
goaltender Patrik Bartosak midway through the first period.
SHARKSPAGE photo via video capture

For video highlights we’ll use the Manchester Monarchs YouTube channel.

Worcester almost had a fifth goal by just inches, only instead of the puck not crossing the goal line it was a player not clearing the offensive zone. Konrad Abeltshauser wristed a puck that bounced along the ice from about 75 feet out that fooled Manchester Monarchs goaltender Patrik Bartosak as the puck hit off the post and into the net. Freddie Hamilton was offside by less than a stride as he failed to clear the zone and the goal was disallowed.

In the other direction, Manchester had a goal that was waved off counted after video replay. After a brief goalmouth scramble the net behind Anderson came off the pegs and with the puck in the space vacated by the net referee Jonathan Alarie immediately signaled ‘no goal’, but then indicated that the officials would go to video replay. In an oddity the other referee, David Banfield, looked at the video instead of Alarie, and after a few moments signaled the goal was good.

The silliness of “if the playoffs started today…” has begun in Worcester as the WorSharks have jumped into the top eight of the AHL’s Eastern Conference. Right now their 45 points is good for seventh, but there are three teams just a single point behind them at 44. The WorSharks do have the advantage of having at least a game in hand against all the team immediately around them, and can give themselves some breathing room against the team currently listed in the eighth spot, the Albany Devils, as the two squads play a home and home on Friday and Saturday. They can also creep into sixth place on Wednesday night with a regulation victory over the Pirates in Portland.

File this under “We didn’t think this one through”. On Saturday night as the Monarchs celebrated “Los Angeles Kings” night Manchester wore purple and gold jerseys based on Los Angeles’ sweaters from the 1980s that featured the Kings’ original crown logo on the front. On that night the Monarchs played the Providence Bruins, who wear a black and gold jersey. With both teams having gold on the shoulders it was apparently difficult for players to quickly determine who was on what team. Manchester switched to their home whites for the final two periods.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70222015-01-18T13:24:34Z2015-01-18T13:24:34ZThe Worcester Sharks scored three first period goals with Daniil Tarasov, Freddie Hamilton, and captain Bryan Lerg all connecting in the opening twenty minutes, and a second period tally by defenseman Taylor Fedun was just icing on the cake as goaltender Troy Grosenick went a perfect 25 for 25 on shots against to register his first shutout of the season in the WorSharks 4-0 victory over the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins Saturday night at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts in front of 5,132 fans.

Worcester Sharks goaltender Troy Grosenick had 25 saves in his first shutout of the season
in Saturday's 4-0 WorSharks win over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. It was Grosenick's third career
AHL shutout. Grosenick also has an NHL shutout over the Carolina Hurricanes this season.
Photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’ll once again point to the Worcester Sharks YouTube channel.

Scratches for the WorSharks were Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Greger Hanson, Nick Jones, and Eriah Hayes (shoulder). J.P. Anderson was the back-up goaltender. The plan was for Anderson to start Sunday afternoon in Manchester, but head coach Roy Sommer might be having second thoughts with Grosenick posting a shutout last night and having a great weekend so far.

With the win Saturday night Worcester went a perfect five for five on their home stand, the first time that’s ever happened in franchise history. It’s also the first time the WorSharks have ever had five wins in any home stand no matter how many games it was. Their six game winning streak ties for the second longest, having done it now three times, the latest being from March 7th to the 16th last season. The Worcester Sharks longest winning streak is seven games set in the franchise’s first season, from March 16th to the 31st. This writer had the WorSharks franchise record point streak as nine games, but this morning we’ll make a quick edit to mention Bill Ballou has in the T&G the record as being eight games. We’ll doff our cap to Ballou and go with his eight.

In a stat teased last night on twitter, with Grosenick’s shutout last night for the first time in WorSharks franchise history they’ve had a season with three different goaltenders registering shutouts. You’d likely have made a fortune in Las Vegas had you wagered on that happening and then parlayed that bet into the correct order of it taking place as Aaron Dell–generally of the ECHL’s Allen Americans this season–had the first one in St John’s with a 1-0 win on December 5th. Usual back-up Anderson followed suit a few days later with a 1-0 victory of his own on December 14th vs Portland. The Worcester IceCats also did it just once in their 11 seasons, in 1996-97, when Mike Buzak, Jamie McLennan, and Travis Scott all recorded shutouts that season. Grosenick’s personal six game winning streak is one short of the franchise record of seven, held by Thomas Greiss and Al Stalock.

Prior to the game there was the standard gathering of the minds, such as they are, on the concourse behind the press row area. As he occasionally does Sharkspage minion Tyler Lowell joined the group, although this time with a broken stick belonging to Hamilton that was broken in warm-ups. That brought back the age-old discussion that with the new composite sticks breaking fairly often penalty killers would be best served using wood sticks. The lines are well drawn in our argument on the subject, but perhaps now all will be on my side of the issue after a second period WorSharks penalty kill saw three players end up without sticks. First Taylor Doherty broke his stick blocking a shot, so John McCarthy passed his stick back to Doherty. Within a few seconds Doherty broke that one too. After a pile-up in front of Grosenick he ended up without a stick, only Doherty, now camped in front of the net, didn’t have one to give him. Somehow Worcester was still able to clear the puck.

If you looked at the score sheets you’d think Tarasov was having just an “OK” week. In three games he has a couple goals, is about close to “even”, and has just a handful of shots. If you watched the actual games you’d have seen a completely different player out there. Tarasov is playing like a guy that has finally figured out what he needs to do to get a shot at playing in the NHL and is doing it. His play on both ends of the ice has been fantastic over the last three games, with about the only thing he hasn’t done is get into a fight yet. With the WorSharks playing Manchester Sunday for the third time in a week a fight is certainly a possibility for the suddenly very feisty Tarasov.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70182015-01-17T14:52:51Z2015-01-17T14:52:51ZThe Worcester Sharks entered this week having lost ten of the previous eleven matchups with the Manchester Monarchs, but after a shocking 3-1 win Tuesday over their rivals from New Hampshire the WorSharks did it again Friday in a 5-4 shootout victory over the Monarchs at the DCU Center. Jeremy Langlois and Taylor Fedun had multiple point nights for Worcester, while captain Bryan Lerg had the only tally in the shootout. The two teams play again Sunday in Manchester.

Worcester Sharks rookie forward Chris Tierney was falling to the ice but still
managed to rip off a wrist shot that beat Manchester goaltender J.F. Berube to
tie the game 2-2. The WorSharks would go on to win 5-4 in a shootout.
Photo courtesy STEVE LANAVA/T&G Staff

For video highlights of Friday’s game we’ll use the WorSharks YouTube channel.

Worcester went with the same lineup both Tuesday and Friday, with Jimmy Bonneau, Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Greger Hanson, and Eriah Hayes (shoulder) all scratched and J.P. Anderson the backup goaltender. There was one lineup change due to an AHL trade that saw forward Adam Burish being loaned to the Chicago Wolves by the San Jose Sharks and the St. Louis Blues assigning old friend John McCarthy to the WorSharks. While there have been a handful of minor league players to have multiple stints with Worcester, McCarthy becomes just the second player to leave the WorSharks to sign with another NHL organization only to eventually return to the Worcester roster. The first was Derek Joslin, who was reacquired after he signed with the Vancouver Canucks and spent the majority of the season with, ironically enough, the Chicago Wolves. Worcester also had another transaction in the week, releasing Riley Brace from his PTO.

One of this writer’s pet peeves is when the official far away from the action calls a penalty that the near referee has a great view of and doesn’t make. If the referee 30 feet away looking right at the play doesn’t call something, why does the referee 100 feet or more away think he has a better angle? That happed twice Friday night, and both cost the WorSharks a power play. In the first period Manchester defenseman Derek Forbort tackled Chris Tierney from behind in a move that looked like a linebacker taking down a running back. Referee Jon McIsaac’s hand went right up and the whistle blew as the Monarchs had possession of the puck, but from almost 100 feet away referee Cameron Voss called Tierney for a dive, despite Forbort being on top of Tierney. Later it was McIsaac’s turn, who called Daniil Tarasov for diving after he was blown out by a Forbort crosscheck while Worcester had a man advantage. To make matters worse, the crosscheck went uncalled.

To continue on about not being happy with the officiating, Manchester’s Josh Gratton was assessed two minors. His first was in the second period for unsportsmanlike conduct after a play was blown dead, and watching the video it’s not obvious what he did to deserve it. For the most part he was skating toward the bench for a line change by himself. His second was in the third period for goaltender interference, and despite him crashing into Grosenick it looked like a good hockey play from everyone involved. That penalty resulted in Taylor Fedun’s goal that gave the WorSharks a 4-3 lead.

Due to the craziness of the AHL scheduling Friday night was the last visit from the Monarchs to the DCU Center for the regular season. Worcester went 2-3-1 in the six games. They teams still play four more times in New Hampshire, starting with Sunday’s 3pm EST contest.

Local legend Rene Rancourt sang the national anthem prior to the game. Rancourt, who is the usual anthem singer for the Boston Bruins and for a variety of events around New England, also signed autographs during the game and fans around these parts still line up to greet him.

]]>0Darryl Hunthttp://www.sharkspage.comhttp://www.sharkspage.com/?p=70092015-01-11T14:45:10Z2015-01-11T14:45:10ZThe Worcester Sharks in recent seasons have found a variety of ways to win games, but on Saturday night at the DCU Center against the Providence Bruins after the WorSharks came back from three different one-goal deficits for the first time in franchise history the Worcester Sharks used an overtime penalty shot goal, by captain Bryan Lerg, to gain two points as they defeated their route 146 rivals 4-3 in overtime. Dylan DeMelo, Willie Coetzee, and Daniil Tarasov had the regulation goals for the WorSharks while goaltender Troy Grosenick contributed 26 saves in the winning effort. Worcester is now 6-0-0-0 against Providence this season, and has seven wins in a row against them dating back to last season.

Worcester Sharks captain Bryan Lerg became the first WorSharks player to score an
overtime penalty shot goal. It was the first in the AHL since Doug Janik had one
for the Grand Rapids Griffins on April 10, 2012. File photo courtesy of TEAMSHRED

For video highlights we’ll once again use the WorSharks YouTube channel

Worcester head coach Roy Sommer went with the same line-up as he used against Binghamton Friday night, with Petter Emanuelsson (shoulder), Micheal Haley (sick), Eriah Hayes (shoulder), and Nick Jones all scratches. J.P. Anderson was the back-up goaltender.

As you can tell by the video that Providence goaltender Jeremy Smith disagreed with referee Olivier Gouin calling for a penalty shot after determining PBruins defenseman Chris Casto covered the puck in the crease. Turns out Smith may have been right, because according to some fans sitting behind the net it was indeed a bad call because the reason Casto had his hand over the puck was he was pulling it out of the net. Lerg’s post-game comments to WorSharks beat reporter Bill Ballou of the T&G echo that point as he said “I was smothered in the crease, and I thought the puck was in, but one of their guys pulled it out of the net with his hand.”

Some penalty shot facts for the WorSharks: Lerg became the first Worcester Sharks player to have two attempts in a row, his first being earlier this season against Kristers Gudlevskis in Syracuse where Lerg did not score. Lerg joins Brandon Mashinter as the only Worcester Sharks player with two penalty shot attempts for the team. Mashinter missed both his attempts. It wasn’t the first OT penalty shot for the WorSharks, Michael Connelly had one against Springfield’s Manny Legace 11/16/2011 on November 16th, 2011. Obviously Connelly didn’t score on that one. Lerg’s goal makes the franchise 5-15 in penalty shot attempts all-time.

In the house last night was ESPN personality John Buccigross, who appeared and signed autographs as part of the “#bucciovertimechallenge” bobblehead giveaway. This writer had a brief conversation where I asked if it was his first bobblehead. He laughed and replied “and likely last”. I then mentioned he needed another so he could use them as bookends, which drew more laughs from him. After signing autographs, which included a short break for a ceremonial puck drop, Buccigross the spent the rest of the game in one of the luxury boxes and tweeted out several pictures as we had “An in person @TheAHL #BucciOvertimeChallenge”. Buccigross gave Lerg some “swag” for scoring in OT and tweeted out “Find video of @BLerg11 penalty shot/OT winner for @WorcesterSharks. It was pure filth. 50 miles of dangles-backhand-thin mints-pot sticker”. There’s no need to find video, just scroll up to the highlight.

The Sharkspage player of the game is usually not one of the top two starts as we like to shine a little light on someone that didn’t get noticed enough, but seriously, how is it not Lerg for Saturday night.